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Accident Reports

Appalachia, Winter/Spring 2008

Lost Cross-Country Skier in Lincoln Woods Area
On February 10, 2007, a group of two skiers, John F., 52, and Peter E., and three hikers, James B., Eric S., and Michael P. (no ages given for the others), left the Kancamagus Highway to ski or walk the Lincoln Woods Trail to the short dead-end Franconia Falls Trail. Here, they separated. The hikers went to the falls, and then returned on the Lincoln Woods Trail to the road, where they waited for their companions. When the two skiers failed to return, the hikers alerted the Forest Service personnel at the trailhead.

Some time later, one skier, Peter, returned. He and John had continued north on the Franconia Brook Trail, convinced that it would loop back to the trailhead. In fact, this trail simply took them further north, a longer distance away from their starting point. At 2 P.M., as they continued north, passing the junction with the Lincoln Brook Trail, Peter decided to backtrack. He did not know where he was and didn’t know where they were going. He wanted to be able to follow his tracks back in daylight. He advised John to turn around with him, but his companion refused, saying that he believed he could return on another trail. John continued toward Thirteen Falls campsite. Neither of them had a map, compass, or light.

To do a loop, the skiers would have had to avoid turning onto the Franconia Brook Trail, instead staying straight to take the Wilderness Trail, which then loops around to return by the Pemi East Side Trail. John had done that classic loop before and believed that he was repeating it.

Searchers took a snowmobile to the boundary of the Pemigewasset Wilderness, from which point they hiked up the Franconia Brook Trail to where the Lincoln Brook Trail branches off to the west. Here the rescuers split into two groups, one going up each trail. The group that took the Franconia Brook Trail found John at around midnight, further north along that route at the Thirteen Falls campsite. They gave the victim some food, and walked him out, reaching the trailhead around 7 A.M.

Comment: The basic scenario of this accident is a familiar one in summer, but, fortunately, rarer in dangerous winter weather. A hiker or skier thinks he knows an area and plans a trip based on faulty recollections. He takes no map, no compass, no light, insufficient food, and barely adequate clothing. In this case, we also have the stubborn refusal to turn around when his companion did so. What makes this incident sadder is that the information booth at the trailhead was open. The skiers could easily have learned accurate directions for a loop route. Though both skiers were similarly unprepared, one of them had
the basic common sense to turn around before dark.

It is a sad irony that the hikers most likely to need a map are those who are least likely to have one. All the experienced hikers I know carry a map and compass on any trail, even those with which they are intimately familiar. Unfortunately, many inexperienced hikers will venture into an area with which they have little (or no) familiarity with neither map nor compass. In most cases, they will have no problems, and that they have often hiked without navigational tools with no adverse result strengthens their belief that they don’t need these tools. This mishap proves that they do.

A full listing of Accident Reports may be found in the Winter/Spring 2008 issue of Appalachia.

- Mohamed Ellozy, "Accidents" Editor